PLAYING THE GAMES:
Taking Part / After The Party
Criterion Theatre, London SW1
Opened 30 July, 2012
***

It is a risky move for the Criterion to schedule a strand of matinee events during Olympic peak season, even as part of the Cultural Olympiad itself. It could pay off handsomely, if enough people want to get away from the frenzy of the Games themselves by spending an hour or so in a subterranean West End theatre. However, even on the press showing a venue of under 600 capacity looked to be less than half full, suggesting that such a payoff may be a long shot indeed. Perhaps the turnout for other events in the series will be stronger: it includes talks and comedy sets as well as the two short plays (each around 50 minutes) staged together for the press but normally playing in repertoire.
    
Adam Brace’s Taking Part is, in essence, a buddy-movie play. An indefatigably optimistic Congoloese swimmer is trained for the Olympics by a much blunter and more realistic Russian coach; when he makes it to London, will his principles survive? (Hint: no.) Paul Moriarty is not the most plausible Muscovite, but he glowers and swears well in equal and opposite balance to Obi Abili’s almost permanent smile. Brace makes a trenchant point about the stock media figure of the “lovable loser”, explicitly acknowledging the precedent set by Equatorial Guinean swimmer Eric “the Eel” Moussambani. No great profundity is intended in a performance slot like this, but it is a play with a head on its shoulders.
    
Serge Cartwright’s After The Party, in contrast, is unadulterated East London wide-boy comedy. Thirtyish Sean still has dreams of being a club DJ, but when he and his MC-wannabe mate Ray try to earn a couple of grand in a couple of weeks everything predictably goes wrong, from a disintegrating burger van converted from an advertisement-poster trailer via being scammed by a beautiful young woman to the awful truth about why they never made it. There are some nice Games-topical touches (the advert on the “van”, still half-visible, is for the NHS, and Ray has a cheeky rap about the opening ceremony, although given the van’s location there is a conspicuous lack of kettled cyclists), and Kate Lamb steals her scene as Sean’s girlfriend’s excruciatingly “wigger” sister. But, to mix a metaphor, this is a piece of fluff which runs on rails.
     
Written for the Financial Times.

Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.

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